But now... I have the requirement to edit the data. (I tried setting the editor to a check column... and it essentially works but not as elegantly. You need to click or double-click into the cell, and then when the real edit check box shows up, the value can be changed. Whereas, with the check column, once you click the check box, the value changes.)

So is my only option "hand" coding this? Or is there another tool I can use?

in my case it works when I add the renderer to colomn promoted to a class, as @ssamayoa told you, and the rest of the extension in its override. I can not use the event 'checkchange' in SA, just using the store events.